Fun
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Curious
Romantic
Weird
In today’s expanding content universe, it’s tough when one of your favorite shows is cancelled, but streaming services have selectively been reviving fan favorites. When The Soup ended its run at E! in December 2015, it signaled the end of an era for the show’s creators and fans alike. However, approximately one year later, executive producer (and self-described Soup superfan) Paul Feig, K.P. Anderson and Lionsgate pitched an idea for a reboot that would eventually become The Joel McHale Show with Joel McHale. This incarnation of the show would bring back all the things fans loved about the weekly recap clip show, as well as some fun bonuses. Decider attended a taping of The Joel McHale Show with Joel McHale in Hollywood late last week and caught up with McHale, Feig, Anderson and head writers Brad Stevens and Boyd Vico. Stevens and Vico came on board when the new team came together after working with McHale on his CBS comedy The Great Outdoors.
A few minutes before the taping began, Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos quietly slipped onto the soundstage and chatted with Feig. McHale’s longtime wardrobe stylist Jose made some last minute adjustments as makeup artists primped McHale’s artfully spiked hair. Audience members were directed to look at monitors so they could see the clips McHale referred to during the taping. From start to finish, it took 30-40 minutes to tape the show, and on this particular Thursday, McHale hit every cue and joke flawlessly, so there were no retakes. Executive producer Paul Feig, elegantly dressed in his usual bespoke suit, also appeared in one of the bits.
Feig has a lot on his plate right now and admitted, “This is my favorite place to be and I’ve got all these other projects I’m supposed to be managing. (laughs) And I just hang out here all the time. I’m literally posting my new movie and I’m about to direct a pilot.” McHale told Decider, “If you had said a major motion picture director of huge hit comedies will be there every day, I would have said somebody has committed a crime and is trying to rebuild their career but he just comes and hangs out.” Anderson added, “I think Paul’s only missed two clip meetings so far.” Anderson was referring to the daily clip meetings where the writers and executive producers review clips in contention for each week’s episode. We wondered if there was also a team text chain for when anyone saw a random clip and McHale said, “Well, we’re not fifteen-year-olds so we have regular meeting times.”
When we mentioned seeing the boss at the taping, Feig shared that Sarandos has attended every taping to date. Yes, there have only been three so far, but given Sarandos’s packed schedule, that’s impressive. Feig acknowledged Sarandos’s support of the show, “Ted’s a big comedy fan and that’s why we love being here because he really supports comedy.” Anderson chimed in, “He and Netflix have been awesome. It’s been really cool seeing how they launched the announcement and everything they put behind the promotion is nothing we’ve had before on projects like this.” McHale also sees a big difference doing a show at Netflix, “I’ve never experienced the sort of tactical and strategic marketing – they know exactly who’s getting it. The show drops at 12:05 on Sunday mornings and I said, ‘Well, why?’ and they said, ‘We know how this works.'”
For McHale, his return to the format is aided by muscle memory. He elaborated, “I still fuck up the words all the time and can’t read real well, but it’s way better than 2004 when it took me four hours to get through 21 minutes of jokes. It took me forever. It’s a very well-oiled machine because the staff is tremendous. And, obviously, we’ve done it before.”
So, what can the team do on Netflix that they couldn’t do at “the old place” (as McHale refers to the network that was home to The Soup)? Anderson jokes, “Enjoy ourselves” and then explains, “Creatively, it’s a broader pool we can pull from – we’ve got the international segment and the sports segment. It’s not that E! wouldn’t have let us do it, they just would’ve whined about it after we did it. They liked us staying inside that American pop culture, reality TV zone and this broadens it out for us. That was their brand and their audience.” McHale added, “E! was great to us and Ted Harbert let us do anything. He said ‘Make fun of the network’ and we did. Then the next regime came in and moved us off of Friday night where everyone was used to us by that point. Then the next regime said, ‘Don’t make fun of the Kardashians.’ Then Joan [Rivers] died and Chelsea [Handler] left and the comedy brand really eroded. Now, being at Netflix, I feel like Oliver Twist – “you don’t have to steal food anymore, you can just eat.”
Fans can feast on new episodes of The Joel McHale Show with Joel McHale Sundays at 12:05am, streaming on Netflix.
Diane Gordon is an entertainment industry veteran who has done time on red carpets covering TV premieres, award shows and sundry events. She’s also worked in TV development, production and talent management. In addition to reporting, she also does social media hosting for the Paley Center for Media Los Angeles, where she wrangles talent and serves up photos and live tweets for fans to enjoy. You can follow Diane on Twitter and Instagram: @thesurfreport.
